Support of bent stiff wire for suspended files or the like, removably insertable into a furniture drawer

ABSTRACT

Support of bent stiff wire for suspended files or the like, removably insertable into a furniture drawer, comprising a lower frame and an upper frame being mutually interconnected by means of a pair of mountings, each mounting of said pair is rotatable on the upper frame, the rotation of the mountings being limited by stop means, the lower frame being provided with hook means suitable to hold said mountings in a substantially right angle position with reference to the upper frame against said stop means.

United States Patent 1191 Ceccarelli Nov, 19, 1974 SUPPORT OF BENT STIFFWIRE FOR 3,013,670 12/1961 Mayer 211/181 x SUSPENDED FILES OR THE LIKE,3,098,488 7/1963 Schnelle 3,266,496 8/1966 West 61 al........

REMOVABLY INSERTABLE INTO A FURNITURE DRAWER Inventor: PietroCeccarelli, Massa, ltaly Ing. C. Olivetti & Co., S.p.A., lvrea (Torino),Italy Filed: May 2, 1973 Appl. No.2 356,557

Assignee:

Foreign Application Priority Data References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS6/1922 Barrett 211/178 R Primary Examiner-Ramon S. Britts Attorney,Agent, or Firmlra J. Schaefer [5 7 ABSTRACT Support of bent stiff wirefor suspended files or the like, removably insertable into a furnituredrawer, comprising a lower frame and an upper frame being mutuallyinterconnected by means of a pair of mountings, each mounting of saidpair is rotatable on the upper frame, the rotation of the mountingsbeing limited by stop means, the lower frame being provided with hookmeans suitable to hold said mountings in a substantially right angleposition with reference to the upper frame against said stop means.

3 Claims, 3 Drawing Figures PATENTEL rm 1 9 I974 Fig.3

SUPPORT OF BENT STIFF WIRE FOR SUSPENDED FILES OR THE LIKE, REMOVABLYINSERTABLE INTO A FURNITURE DRAWER BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Thepresent invention relates to a support of bent stiff wire for suspendedfiles or the like, removably in sertable into a furniture drawer,comprising a lower frame and an upper frame mutually interconnected bymeans of a pair of mountings.

Supports of the above mentioned type are known. A first known support isprovided with a substantially rectangular upper frame on the sides ofwhich files or the like may be suspended, having supporting legs whichmay be stiff or having a certain resilience, for instance in order tofit the dimensions of the drawer in which the support may be inserted.This type of support is not sufficiently reliable in stiffness where theweight and the number of suspended files are large.

A second known support is provided with a substantially rectangularupper frame and lower frame which are firmly mutually interconnected bymeans of fixed attachements wherein both the frames and the attachementsare made of stiff wire. This support cannot be folded and cannot beinserted into drawers which are not fully removable, unless it has atleast one dimension which is markedly smaller than the correspondingdimension of the drawer.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention provides a support ofbent stiff for suspended files or the like, which may be folded andcollapsed so as to occupy a minimum volume, for instance in order toimprove packing conditions.

In particular, in the support according to the inven tion, each mountingof the pair is rotatable on the upper frame, the rotation of saidmountings being limited by stop means, the lower frame being providedwith hook means suitable for holding said mountings in a substantiallyright angle position to said upper frame, against the stop means.

Such a support has the advantage that it can be inserted into and pulledout from a cabinet drawer so that the suspended files thereon may betransferred as a unit, for instance from the file cabinet to the workingposition or vice versa and, in addition, may be inserted into a drawerwhich is not fully opened or which cannot be fully opened while havingthe same bulk dimensions of the drawer.

The invention will be described in more detail, by way of example, withreference to the accompanying drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 shows a support according tothe invention in the unfolded or opened position;

FIG. 2 shows the support of FIG. 1 in the folded position;

FIG. 3 shows schematically the manner in which the support is insertedinto a cabinet drawer.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The support in accordance with theinvention comprises an upper frame 1 (FIG. I), a pair of identicalmountings 2 and a lower frame 3. All these elements 1, 2, 3 areconstructed of substantially rigid wire or bars of round cross-section,of steel or other suitable material and may be coated with a layer ofprotective plastic material.

The upper frame 1 is made of two symmetrically superposed rectangularframe-like members 4 and 5 which are rendered mutually integral by weldsat the cross points 14, the parallel sides having dimensions such thateach side 6 and 7 of the frame-like member 4 is protruding out of thecorresponding sides 8 and 9 of the frame-like member 5, while each side10 and 11 of the frame-like member 5 protruds out of the correspondingsides 12 and 13 of the frame-like member 4.

The mountings 2 are substantially U-shaped and are rotatably mounted onthe sides 8 and 9 of the framelike member 5 at points close to andinternal of sides 12 and 13 of the frame-like member 4 by means of twoloops 15, provided from the upper ends of the same mountings 2, so thatthey are able to rotate but not to slide along the frame-like member 5.Furthermore, each mounting 2 is provided on one side with a suitablebend 16, which is adjacent to the loop 15 and separated from the latterby the same distance existing between the side pairs 6, 8 or 7, 9, and,in addition, with a pair of substantially right angle bends l7 and 18,which create a projection 19 external with reference to the remainingsupport structure.

The lower frame 3 is substantially of rectangular shape and is providedwith two U-shaped bends 20 at each end of the two sides 22 and 23. Thebends 20 form two hooks adapted to be hooked by pairs on the transverseportions 24 of mountings 2.

A rod 25 provided with two semicircular bends 26 on its ends may beremovably connected to the upper frame 1. The bends 26 rest slidably onsides 10 and 11 of the frame-like member 5 while rod 25 passes belowsides 10 and 11 of frame-like member 4.

The support is generally stored folded as in FIG. 2 wherein the frame 3is disconnected from the remainder. To mount the support, the mountings2 are first rotated through 270 in the direction of the arrows until thebends 16 are stopped against the sides 6 and 7 of the frame-like member4 (FIG. 1 The mountings 2 are at this time in the position shown in FIG.1 by broken lines, wherein the transverse portions 24 are mutuallyseparated by a distance which is larger than the length of the lowerframe 3.

By urging mountings 2 more inwardly, the latter are resilently distortedto the position shown in FIG. 1 by dotand dash lines, wherein thetransverse portions 24 are located at a distance which is shorter thanthe length of the frame 3. By abutting the lower frame against thetransverse portions 24 of the mountings 2, and by releasing the samemountings, said transverse portions 24 engage the hooks 20 and remainhooked firmly thereon, due to the residual resilient force of the samemountings 2 which tends to rotate them further outwards against hooks20.

When rod 25 is removed from the support, folders 27 (shown in FIG. 1 bya broken line) may be hung onto frame I by laying the lateralprojections of said folders on sides 12 and 13 of the frame-like member4. The folders may be also hung by laying them on the other two sides 8and 9, whereby the support is adapted to receive folders of twodifferent sizes, for instance, for documents of size A4 and A3. When therod 25 is assembled on the support the folders may be hung by layingtheir lateral projections on the same rod 25 and on one or both sides 8and 9 of the frame-like member 5. The support may in this way storefolders of further different sizes.

The support represents, therefore, a compact filing device which may beeasily inserted into or removed from, for instance, a drawer 27 (FIG. 3)of a cabinet 28 or a desk. In particular, the user interested inanalyzing the folders lying in the support may remove from the drawerthe whole support along with the folders.

Furthermore, the support can be inserted into a drawer 27 even thoughsuch drawer 27 has internal dimensions substantially equal to theover-all dimensions of the same support but which cannot be fullyopened. To this end, it will be sufficient that the separation betweenbends 17 and 18 be larger than the separation between the internal wall29 of the drawer 27 and the external wall 30 of the cabinet 28. In fact,it is sufficient to first insert the support by abutting and sliding amounting 2 on wall 31 of the drawer 27 in the manner shown in FIG. 3,and to then slightly rotate the support and to displace it rightwards sothat the projections 19 may be inserted.

It becomes apparent that a support of the described type, once insertedinto a drawer that cannot be fully opened will not shift around, sinceits over-all dimensions are substantially equal to the internal ones ofthe drawer. In this way, the support is prevented from being shakenagainst the drawer walls when the drawer is opened or closed, as itmight happen in the event that such support had, for instance, aparallelepiped shape and, therefore, of over-all dimensions smaller thanthe drawer to permit insertion where the drawer cannot be fully opened.

To fold the support it is sufficient to push mountings 2 (FIG. 1) in thedirection of the arrows as long as the position displayed by a dot-dashline is obtained, to remove the lower frame 3 and then to rotate themountings 2 through approximately 270 in the direction opposite thearrows. The mountings are thus laid inwards, substantially on the sameplane of the frame 1 (FIG. 2), beneath which may also be located thelower frame 3. The support is therefore reduced to a substantiallyplanar structure having minimum over-all dimensions.

What I claim is:

l. A support for removable insertion in furniture drawers for use withsuspended files or the like, said support comprising:

a first rigid wire frame comprising two substantially rectangularelements and disposed in superposed relationship wherein one of said twoelements has two opposite sides parallel to and protruding from twoopposite sides of the other element at a predetermined distancetherefrom;

a second rigid wire frame disposed below said first frame during use andhaving a substantially rectangular configuration and having two hookedportions at each end portion of two opposite sides thereof; and

a pair of rigid wire substantially U-shaped side members for mutuallyinterconnecting said first and said second frames during use, said sidemembers comprising means disposed on the closed end portion of each sidemember for engaging with one of said hooked portions and means disposedat the open end portion of each side member for engaging with said firstwire frame to rotatably mount each side member on one of said twoopposite sides of said one of said two elements for movement throughsubstantially 270 and to hold each side member in a substantially rightangle position with reference to said first wire frame.

2. A support according to claim 1, wherein said means disposed at theopen end portion of each side member comprises a loop at each endportion of said open end portion and a first bend adjacent to each loopand spaced therefrom by said predetermined distance and cooperative withsaid two opposite sides of said other of said two elements to block themovement of the side members when in the substantially right angleposition with said first wire frame.

3. Asupport according to claim 2, wherein each of said side membersfurther comprises two second bends each disposed near one first bend andspaced from said loop to define a given length for said support toprevent said support from being shaken against said front and rear wallsof a drawer having said given length in which it is inserted when thedrawer is opened or closed, said second bend imparting to said support adimension at the lower end shorter than the lenght at the upper end sothat said support may be inserted into a drawer even when the drawercannot be fully pulled out from the furniture.

1. A support for removable insertion in furniture drawers for use with suspended files or the like, said support comprising: a first rigid wire frame comprising two substantially rectangular elements and disposed in superposed relationship wherein one of said two elements has two opposite sides parallel to and protruding from two opposite sides of the other element at a predetermined distance therefrom; a second rigid wire frame disposed below said first frame during use and having a substantially rectangular configuration and having two hooked portions at each end portion of two opposite sides thereof; and a pair of rigid wire substantially U-shaped side members for mutually interconnecting said first and said second frames during use, said side members comprising means disposed on the closed end portion of each side member for engaging with one of said hooked portions and means disposed at the open end portion of each side member for engaging with said first wire frame to rotatably mount each side member on one of said two opposite sides of said one of said two elements for movement through substantially 270* and to hold each side member in a substantially right angle position with reference to said first wire frame.
 2. A support according to claim 1, wherein said means disposed at the open end portion of each side member comprises a loop at each end portion of said open end portion and a first bend adjacent to each loop and spaced therefrom by said predetermined distance and cooperative with said two opposite sides of said other of said two elements to block the movement of the side members when in the substantially right angle position with said first wire frame.
 3. A support according to claim 2, wherein each of said side members further comprises two second bends each disposed near one first bend and spaced from said loop to define a given length for said support to prevent said support from being shaken against said front and rear walls of a drawer having said given length in which it is inserted when the drawer is opened or closed, said second bend imparting to said support a dimension at the lower end shorter than the lenght at the upper end so that said support may be inserted into a drawer even when the drawer cannot be fully pulled out froM the furniture. 